MDA 599 - Getting the Picture: The History and Visual Culture of The News

VSRI Seminar Series

This course offers a point of entry into the surprisingly difficult question: What is a news picture and how does it work? The news picture is an image that operates across the boundaries that have traditionally divided the fields of art history, history, communications and media studies. An interdisciplinary team will teach this seminar. USC and area faculty are invited to join any seminar and will be provided with readings.

This is a weekly seminar series that any interested scholars can attend weekly or occasionally or once. To participate, rsvp: vsri@usc.edu and you will receive the syllabus, readings and updates. If you attend for credit, it fulfills a requirement for the Visual Studies Graduate Certificate.

News pictures are created to be forms of communication, despite the fact that they are often no less expressive and interpretive than artworks. They share with art that they are visual expressions but they also self-consciously seek to inform about the present – the world currently accessible outside the picture – in a truthful way. They are examples of Visual Evidence, the topic of research of USC’s Visual Studies Research Institute. This course offers a point of entry into the surprisingly difficult question: What is a news picture and how does it work? The news picture is an image that operates across the boundaries that have traditionally divided the fields of art history, history, communications and media studies. An interdisciplinary team will teach this seminar. USC and area faculty are invited to join any seminar and will be provided with readings.

This seminar will culminate in a conference, “Getting the Picture,” on May 4-5, 2014 at USC.